Research News

CD47 Protein Is an Actionable Target in Multiple Cancers

March 29, 2012 -- Reported by Time, a working group of scientists at Stanford University School of Medicine, led by professor of pathology Irving Weissman, successfully tested an antibody treatment that blocks the protein CD47—allowing tumor shrinkage in mice for a wide array of cancers including, prostate, breast, ovary, colon, bladder, brain and liver.

“Results out of Stanford University School of Medicine are provocative due to CD47s’ role in not only aggressive prostate cancer, but several other life-threatening cancers,” said Dr. Jonathan Simons, President and CEO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. “Pushing this experimental therapeutic forward could potentially save the lives of nearly 132,000 patients who will die with these identified cancers in 2012, in addition to the 28,000 men who will die this year from prostate cancer.”

The Prostate Cancer Foundation formed a working group and knowledge exchange surrounding the CD47 protein, specifically for patients with treatment resistant metastatic prostate cancers (TrmPCa). Working group scientists are evaluating CD47’s role as a flag, or warning sign, which prevents the body’s immune system from attacking it.